Bramham: Changing attitudes is a long process.
Sad legacy: As we mark 25th anniversary of murder of 14 women in Montreal, females are still being victimized
Twenty- five years ago, an armed man walked into Montreal’s Ecole Polytechnique, separated the students by gender and then started shooting.
Marc Lepine killed 14 women and injured 10 other women and four men before killing himself. His suicide note was a misogynist rant that blamed feminists for ruining his life.
Among the national debates that it sparked was one about violence against women.
It’s a debate that’s never really gone away. But it has recently flared once more with sexual abuse allegations and then charges laid against former CBC star Jian Ghomeshi, allegations of sexual harassment by members of Parliament and continued calls for a national inquiry into the ongoing murders and disappearances of aboriginal women and girls.
If anything, today’s National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women provides a bitter reminder of how glacially slow and incredibly difficult it is to change attitudes that have been embedded for centuries.
What’s chilling is that these attitudes remain embedded in the very institutions that should have been leading the change — the national broadcaster, Parliament and the RCMP, which has a raft of civil suits against it from female officers alleging sexual assault and harassment by their male colleagues.
These attitudes pervade other institutions as well, including universities and colleges where female students are now the majority in many faculties ( although engineering remains an exception).
Yet it was only two years ago during frosh week, first- year students at several universities across the country were encouraged to sing songs about the rape of young girls. Among other things, it prompted the University of British Columbia to institute an “awareness raising” program as if somehow violence against women was something new.
But what can get lost in this remembrance and the discussions prompted by the recent headlines is that these educated women were supposed to have been the least vulnerable to attack.
And while it’s the murders of 14 women that prompted a national day intended to push for action on violence against women, it’s aboriginal women and girls who are at the greatest risk of violence.
More than 1,180 cases of murdered and missing women have been documented over the last 30 years. Some of those women were victims of serial killer Robert Pickton. Some have disappeared along British Columbia’s Highway of Tears.
Two years ago, the B. C. missing women commission inquiry detailed critical police failures regarding the Pickton investigation.
It also pointed out that there are deeper, systemic issues of gender and race inequality and a lack of services that left women so vulnerable.
The violence goes on and none are at greater risk than girls. A 2011 study by UBC researcher Jody Jacob found that 75 per cent of aboriginal girls under 18 have been sexually abused. Statistics Canada data suggests children are as much as five times more likely to be victims of sexual assault than women.
In November, a 16- year- old was beaten so badly under a bridge in Winnipeg that she was left for dead by a man who allegedly went on to sexually assault another woman that same night. Taken to hospital in critical condition, she is now recovering.
In August, the battered body of another Winnipeg teen was pulled from another river.
But it’s not just that the violence continues. It’s that there seems to be so little justice.
The YWCA Canada has illustrated the cycle using data pulled from two different Statistics Canada sources.
The highest estimate is that there are 460,000 sexual assaults every year.
Out of every 1,000, only 33 are reported to police. Of those 33, charges are laid in only 12 cases. Of those 12 cases, only six are prosecuted and only three result in convictions.
How can girls and women have faith in the judicial system?
Of course, there have been positive changes.
A quarter of a century ago, it was rare to see male role models like professional athletes speaking out against violence against women.
Yet for three years, the B. C. Lions football team led by quarterback Travis Lulay has been part of the Be More Than a Bystander campaign, which aims to end violence against women by educating coaches, athletes and schoolchildren.
This week, the YWCA in Vancouver began to reach out to find more male allies with its # I Say No To campaign, challenging high- profile men in the community to post photos of themselves on social media holding signs that say “I say no to violence against women.”
Among the first to sign on were Mayor Gregor Robertson and Police Chief Jim Chu.
Yet it’s almost certain that the majority who mark today’s anniversary of the Montreal Massacre will be women.
Violence against women remains a “women’s issue.” Except that it isn’t and really never has been.
It’s a men’s issue. Because when it comes to violence against women, men are the ones who must stop it.